Category: Taxes

“The D.C. Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a broad tax on all health-related insurance products sold in the nation’s capital to solve a big money problem faced by its online health insurance exchange.”

Like the 14 states that started online marketplaces, the District faces a year-end deadline to prove its Web site can move past technology glitches to meet the next looming challenge in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act: financial self-sufficiency.”

“On Monday, the first open enrollment period for the new Affordable Care Act will close, and the opportunity to sign up for health insurance will not reopen again until November. For our family, President Barack Obama’s promise to make health insurance “affordable and available to every single American” has not come true. “

“The High Cost Plan Excise Tax, which is often referred to as the ‘Cadillac Tax’ is one of the revenue raising provisions in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The excise tax is calculated by comparing the cost of an employer-sponsored plan (which includes premiums paid by the employer and/or employee as well as any contributions into
health accounts such as health savings accounts of flex savings accounts) to a benchmark, which will be adjusted every year based on the Consumer Product Index (CPI). Any amount above the benchmark is taxed at 40 percent; this tax is levied on the health insurance company but is generally understood to be passed onto the consumer, or firm purchasing that plan.”

“The IRS has put a top official in charge of implementing Obamacare on administrative leave after it was discovered he had accepted $1,162 in free food and other items during a 2010 conference. In a statement, the IRS confirmed that two employees have been placed on administrative leave — which is paid — and have begun the process of removing them.”

“Reps. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) and Tom Price (R-Ga.) said their bills are needed in the wake of the IRS’s confirmation that it applied extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Forbes called that a form of “bullying” by the IRS, and said it’s a reason why Congress should approve his bill, which would prohibit the hiring of any new IRS officials to implement ObamaCare.”

“Following recent revelations that agents in multiple IRS offices, including tax officials in Washington, targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny, a number of former and current Republican legislators are already counseling caution about the agency’s role in administering the law. Concerns about the agency’s oversight of the health law are well-founded—and not only because of general concerns about the agency’s judgment.”

“In the wake of running disclosures of the agency’s nefarious snooping and political targeting, its new role as chief health insurance enforcer should give us heartburn. Under Obamacare, the principal responsibility for verifying eligibility for the healthcare program, and monitoring whether you carry qualifying health coverage (and are exempt from the law’s penalties) will fall principally to the IRS.”

“Groups on both sides of the healthcare debate are lobbying Congress to scale back a tax in President Obama’s healthcare law that could end up costing the states billions of dollars. Supporters and opponents of the healthcare law are both eyeing changes to the law’s tax on insurance plans, which could cost the states nearly $15 billion.”